


In Another Life

by ALarryAbroad



Category: One Direction
Genre: Christmas, Complicated Relationships, I wrote this while really jetlagged, Light Angst, M/M, One Shot, and after being in London last week, canon-like, current Louis and harry, first fic, freddie is real in it because he is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 09:56:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8975002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALarryAbroad/pseuds/ALarryAbroad
Summary: Harry and Louis are complicated. Christmas makes people drink and sing.





	

Sometimes you're standing on the brink, in a crowded room. Canapés are being passed, champagne poured. Jolly Christmas sweaters surround you, John Lennon and Yoko pouring through the speakers. You don't know what its like to be alone, not really. You surround yourself with warm bodies always, smiles and sunshine most of the year. The benefit of this crazy life: largely, you can buy happiness. Or. You can buy enough distractions to convince yourself that you're happy.

\---

Some nights, you wake up wondering if it was a dream. Most would expect the last four years would be the surreal part. But these Last years, they are undeniable. So much noise, travel, stimulation, so much everything. This life is too visceral to be able to pretend that it may be a dream. You still close your eyes and see camera flashes, wondering with some degree of delusion if someone might manage to pry their way into your old bedroom where you're currently (attempting to be) sleeping in your childhood bed.

This life isn't the question, but your old one is more up for debate. A young lad so confident and comfortable in his own skin. You don't understand how you seemingly moved backwards. How you seemed to move away from yourself the moment you moved away from him. You stretch your toes out under the blankets. They're socked but still cold. Your bed frame creaks with age, and it brings back memories of a curly-haired boy, warm against your side. It's a memory that nudges your consciousness into the realisation that yes, that life must have been real, too. Somehow.

\------

"Adulthood is bizarre", you think to yourself as you walk along the cold streets of London. You're shopping on Oxford in a fur coat, a foolish place for you to be at this time of year, regardless of your level of celebrity. But here you are, just like everyone else, buying gifts for friends and family a few days before Christmas. You rush from one threshold to the next, picking what you need quickly. The strangest part is that you still shop for him. Never actually bringing anything up to the till, (of course) but always cataloging what he'd like and imagining him opening the parcel. The truth is, though, that you don't know what he'd like, not really. So you play this game to pretend, where you get to keep 18 year old Louis Tomlinson. The Louis Tomlinson who would have loved anything you sat in his lap. And then pulled you down for cuddles, and if his thankful kiss lingered a moment too Long, you both would have pretended not to notice.

\----

So. The truth is, you miss him. If You're allowing yourself to admit it. Which You are , because you're halfway through your second gin & tonic...and it's Christmas, and this season is nothing if not a setup up for drunken nostalgia amongst twinkling lights. 

The band's contractual obligations were a welcome set of circumstances. Even if you hadn't been HarryandLouis for a long while, you still were Harry and Louis...in the same sentence, on the same stage, on the same planet, in the same universe. And sometimes, as luck would have it, you'd still make each other laugh, a joke would pass between you without effort, almost as if the world forgot you weren't HarryandLouis anymore. 

Now the band is gone, you're both in London (you still check up on him on social media, Hard to quit the habit. He's still your compass after all this time; when you are unsure of his location, it is hard to sleep). You've got a date with your Girlfriend tomorrow, and an evening planned with your Son, and with those realisations together, it hits you like a thousand bricks that there may as well be a thousand galaxies between the two of you .

\-----

No one said it was easy, not even Coldplay. You're in a karaoke bar, a poor rendition of "The Scientist" being belted out by a young lad who has clearly just had his heart broken. 

You're really drunk. It's unlike you, really, to get this drunk when you're alone. Always surrounded by people, Mr. Harry Styles. Older people, smarter people, people who can help you feel like the world makes sense. If you carry along with them, maybe the world will think you've got it figured out too. 

Sometimes you wonder. If time had shifted 5 years later, if Louis might have been okay with it all. You didn't need labels, not when it was the two of you, so happy and trusting, whispering in the quiet of your sheets. But the world needed labels then. And when it came time to share who you were, he couldn't.

\------

You don't know what compels you to leave the current bar and walk to the next one. Except you do. 

That old bar, where you and Harry used to sing old R&B songs, particularly inspired after Long movie marathons mostly featuring Pitch Perfect on repeat. You grab a drink and head to the back to sit a while, hoping to catch a glimpse of some young kids who are still stupid enough to be in love without condition. Or maybe to watch someone sing a heartbroken tune, because let's face it, misery loves company.

It only takes a few minutes, and then you hear it. An unmistakable clearing of a throat into the microphone. You look up to the stage and see him from the bottom first, Pigeon-toes and long legs. You take a shaky breath and the world spins. And Before you have a chance to right yourself, he begins.

\----

"Hello everyone." You say, a bit meekly.

A few people recognise you from the crowd, and cheer with recognition. but most people here are out of your band's target audience, so the vibe is still somber and adequate for what you're about to do.

" 'S'been a while since I've sung on stage. But. Feeling like I needed to be tonight, I Guess. Thanks in advance for listening".

It's not the deepest song, to most. Most in the crowd will just think it's a quirky pick. Gender bending, slightly cheeky pop star stuff. But you sing it like it means so much more than that. (It does).

Summer after high school  
When we first met  
We'd make out in your Mustang to Radiohead  
And on my 18th birthday we got matching tattoos 

Used to steal your parents liquor  
And climb to the roof  
Talk about our future like we had a clue  
Never thought that one day I'd be losing you

In another life , I would be your girl  
We keep all our promises be us against the world  
In another life  
I would make you stay  
So I don't have to say you were the one that got away...

\-----

You stand up. Your body starts moving forward before your brain can really comprehend that he's singing this song for you. About the both of you. Who you were and who you could have been. 

\-----

You continue to sing, pain rising in your throat. And it's that moment when you see him. First, he's an apparition. And then he's standing in front of you, joggers and sweater paws and fringe, tears in his big blue eyes. Eyes that are now looking at you earnestly, peering into your soul like he's the other half of it. (Because he is. Of course he is.)

All this money can't buy me a time machine  
Can't replace You with a million rings  
I should of told you what you meant to me  
'Cause now I pay the price...

\-----

You stare until the song is over, not daring to break eye contact. You can't bear the thought of him being alone like this for another moment of his life, Nor a moment of yours. And so you wait there with him as he sings. You are done running.

 

\------  
You're off the stage so fast, you feel as if you may have floated. 

"Lou." You manage, a half choked Sob. And then, half a smile. "You um, you really weren't meant to see that, I'm so sorry if I..."

And then he's everywhere. Arms around you, head tucked into your neck.

\----

"Haz. I know, love." You say.

\----  
And then he kisses you. 

And then, like some kind of Big Bang, those two worlds, the two lifetimes that you couldn't piece together: they suddenly collide. It feels like a fireball, and it feels like coming home.

It feels like you're back in your own skin, suddenly like these last years have just been days of going through the motions while you had been waiting.

Waiting for you to find each other in this world again. 

X.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading my self-indulgent head Canon :)


End file.
